Sinner's Prayer
by manuelak
Summary: Prompt: A Claire's inner monologue after discovering that Jamie married Laoghaire based in the music Jealous by Labrinth Listen to the music! /watch?v 50VWOBi0VFs


_I'm jealous of the rain_

 _That falls upon your skin_

 _It's closer than my hands have been_

 _I'm jealous of the rain_

 _I'm jealous of the wind_

 _That ripples through your clothes_

 _It's closer than your shadow_

Even when you know in the deep bottom of your mind that you don't want things to change, your rational side screams to you that twenty years are a long time. When our lips touch, twenty years are a blink. Right now, twenty years shows the true weight of separation, of time. I fled away, two hundreds years in the future, back to my ex-not so ex-husband. I was happy, part of me was indeed, the other part was always here, with this man, two hundreds years in the past. The man I love most, Jamie,the one for I gave up all my life with Frank, the one who was everything to me. The one I turned my back and ran to save mine, _our_ , child. I would do everything again to save Brianna and, more, I would give all my life to her just for a glimpse of her face safe. But, right now, Brianna seems like a faded memory, almost a dream. The part of my brain that remembers all that history, all that pain says to me, in a maternal thone: "You said to move, like you do. Twenty years is too much. To much to wait. Too much pain." The side of me, hidden in the woods like an animal, roars: "He is yours". Show me the claws of jealous, say to me how Jamie should have waited for me.

 _I wished you the best of_

 _All this world could give_

 _And I told you when you left me_

 _There's nothing to forgive_

In the middle of this inner battle, I pray, a speechless prayer, the pray of the jealous, the pray of the leftovers. I pray that his night with her were nothing cold, so _my_ Jamie could think in ours full-of-love nights, like I did so many times in the bed with Frank. I pray that their kisses were rare and when they kissed, he remembered me, like I did. Maybe God don't care and sends to hell those whose prayers are selfish like mine, but I hope God have mercy of my soul, for one time at least. Because my days without Jamie were haunted, everytime I looked at Brianna, everytime I did anything for her I could see him, guiding me. Her high cheekbones, her fox wild hair glowing by the sunlight. Her unconditional love and tenderness. All her mannerisms, the way she can't wink, but keep blinking both eyes in a frustrated wink.

 _But I always thought you'd come back, tell me all you found was_

 _Heartbreak and misery_

I was so far away from Jamie, but he was there, living and breathing in her. Frank and I knew it, we couldn't look at her and not think about how she was beautiful, but a ghost. He manipulated her to be the little perfect daughter for himself and take away from her mother. For him, that was the price I should pay for my infidelity. If he couldn't look at her without thinking about my love, I couldn't look at her, nor have her. She was Frank's daughter, never mine. All the important decisions, I couldn't say anything. He would fight with me, like a landlord fighting for his possessions. He couldn't take her away physically from me, but put all his efforts emotionally to me the best parent he could, and straing me from her at every step of the way. He never looked directly at her, never spent so much time seeing the details of her face, she was a doll inside a box, in his eyes, a collector's fourth edition of an old magazine, displayed for all to see, his labour at crafting in her, himself. Even when nothing was about her father, the real one, the one she never met. He was a nightmare, I prayed everyday hoping that in the next day, my wake-up was going to be in my bedroom, in Lallybroch, far from Boston, with Jamie, but the end slumber would only come to me in my reality, were my only warm came from wishing for things to go back, as days grew even colder. Almost a shock every morning. He listened to my screams for Jamie in the dark of the night, he listened to my sobbings for a dead men.

 _It's hard for me to say, I'm jealous of the way_

 _You're happy without me_

In twenty years, I was a happy-ish person, happy with part of my soul, Brianna, and haunted with the another, Jamie. My hopes that the days were the same for him are based in my own desires: Not being forgotten by the men I never forgot.

 _I'm jealous of the nights_

 _That I don't spend with you_

 _I'm wondering who you lay next to_

Being loved as much I loved him. If he was happy without me, happy with another woman, all this journey to the past, all this pain, was meaningless. My catholic rational talks about forgiveness and compassion, about love and pain, about heal and be healed, about letting him be happy, even without me. My human part, the part who mourned for him, screams at the fear of being alone in the world, haunted at the fear of losing him. I rather live with the doubt, the grinding pain in my heart that he could have another wife, other kids. I mourned for the kid he never met, for my kid. The woman I raised in the shadow of the love of my life, in the hope to see his gaze in her eyes. I cried thinking about how she loved him and wanted him, but not even saw a picture of him, how she could never know what joy here can bring. But he was there with other kids, living a good life. A family life. Real family. Not the life me and Brianna experienced, the broken life in the shadows of a happy past, under the pretence of normality. A life of frustration, a loop of construction and destruction. Never enough. Never complete. Always in bites. Always hurt, manipulated, leftover. Jamie called me "Sassenach", an outlander, first for fun and after, with love. With Frank, I was always an outlander, not a foreigner from country, but from his life. I was more than a british living in Boston, somethings are more than just stickers and passports. I was never a full resident of that family, never a full part of it. Always in the shadow with an expired visa. Foreigner of love, family and history. But right now, in my home, the house I shared with him, I was a foreigner too. An unwanted one. Destroying everything that was settled piece by piece in the last two decades.

Envy is a sin, but I would spent all my days in hell, full of joy, knowing that he was all mine. Head to toe. Body and soul.

 _Oh, I'm jealous of the nights_

 _I'm jealous of the love_

 _Love that was in here_

 _Gone for someone else to share_

When he cried in his knees for me, I cried of relief. When he said that everything was miserable, that he doesn't loved her and never would love anyone like he loved me, my heart was ready to fly. I knew that my selfish thoughts was not something to be proud about. I could accept my bad behaviour, I could forgive myself. But I couldn't live without him, not anymore. No more lies. But the knowledge that he was mine, just mine, was like honey and I didn't want to share such thing.

 _As I sink in the sand_

 _Watch you slip through my hands_

 _Oh, as I die here another day_

 _'Cause all I do is cry behind this smile_

He stands there, like a god, like the saviour he was and I can't blame myself anymore. To the hell and back. Maybe, the two decades apart was the purgatory and I was now, finally, accepted in the kingdom of our Lord. Maybe, I sold my soul to the devil with this long red hair and viking face. I didn't have a soul to sell, he was all my soul. All my feelings. Sanity. My rock, body and soul. I don't care for not being a complete person by myself. I proved myself, I proved I could live apart, be an independent woman, raise children, fight for rights, make money, be successful. I was there. But in the dark of his blue eyes, I could be laid bare of my sins, duties, my own name. I could forget who I was and learn again, just by his touch. In the darkness, I have no name. In Boston, I remember the hippies talking about the nirvana. I saw all those pamphlets with steps to reach transcendence. Looking at him, without thinking, without doubt, without fear, that was it. He is all my sins. He is all my virtues. And the Lord can blame me and send me to the devil, I was in heaven right here, right now. For years, I remembered him as a dream, the perfect fantasy and everytime I see that he is real, beautiful and lovely. Lord, that is heaven. I can touch more than just bare skin, I can keep his soul in my hands. I wanna be the air in his lungs, the water in his eyes, the wind in his hair.

 _I'm jealous of the rain_

 _That falls upon your skin_

 _It's closer than my hands have been_

 _I'm jealous of the rain_

 _I'm jealous of the wind_

 _That ripples through your clothes_

In the darkness we are nothing more than one. One shadow moving, dancing and loving. We are nothing but the whole creation, the whole world in four hands. Nothing but me and him. Lord, hears the sinner's prayer and understand the pain in theirs souls, but from this sin I can not repent.


End file.
